Vegan Nacho Cheese on the Cheap

Recently, Bertolli gifted me a beautiful, 34 oz. bottle of their extra virgin olive oil and invited me to enter their 150th Anniversary recipe contest. Although I use olive oil in almost everything I cook, this was a real challenge for me. What could I do with olive oil that I’ve never done before? (I even put it in my hair and on my face. Have I mentioned lately that I’m Italian?) Anyway, the first thing that came to mind is the thing that’s almost always on my mind. Nachos.

I love nachos. So much. Here is a picture of me being insanely happy about a plate of nachos:

Everyone who isn’t crazy knows that the best part about nachos is the nacho cheese – you know, the melted orange crayon-looking stuff that gets pumped out of a metal box? Mmm…orange. My go-to vegan nacho cheese recipe is great, but it calls for cashews, which I am almost always out of because I make so much vegan nacho cheese. So today I nacho’d up a “potato cheese” recipe that calls for 1/4 cup of delicious, delicious olive oil.

It turned out so tasty, and it was SO stupid cheap to make! We’re going to have this over jackfruit tacos tonight, but I have a feeling nacho sweet potatoes and nacho, well, nachos are also in the near future.

Oh – and a quick tip for anyone new to chipotle peppers in adobo (affiliate link): These smoky, delicious little peppers are generally sold in a can. I throw the whole can, sauce and all, into the blender and puree it, then I just use about 1 Tbs in this recipe (or one whole pepper) and I freeze the rest. Whenever the nacho mood strikes, the puree is ready to go in my freezer.

Vegan Nacho Potato Cheese

By BakeandDestroy
Published: July 2, 2015

Yield:6 Servings

Prep:5 mins

Cook:15 mins

Ready In:20 mins

I think this sauce is best served immediately, but you can refrigerate it and then reheat it over a medium flame. Thick enough to use as a dip, creamy enough to use as a sauce!